Nonprofit boards heavily depend on volunteers with very little time to spare. Board members typically balance governance responsibilities alongside demanding full-time jobs. The staff supporting them are often juggling board administration alongside responsibilities to the CEO, employees, clients, and the organization itself.
At Damien Center, Indiana’s oldest and largest HIV/AIDS service organization, we face that challenge day after day. We have a 25-member main board, an additional five-member board, seven monthly committee meetings, monthly board and executive meetings, quarterly meetings, an annual retreat, and new member orientation—all adding up to about 115 meetings a year. And I need to prepare materials for and follow up on all those meetings, in addition to fulfilling my daily responsibilities as an executive assistant.
Over the past year, we’ve started incorporating AI into some of our tasks to lighten the workload. That means less staff time spent on administrative work and more time spent on building meaningful relationships with board members and the community we serve.
Here are a few lessons I’ve learned that may be useful to other nonprofits exploring AI:
1. Start with the repetitive work consuming staff time
It can be tempting to think about AI in terms of what new things it might allow an organization to do. When we decided to use OnBoard, an AI tool designed for board meeting prep, we started by looking at what we’re already doing that consumes too much time. For me, that included building agendas, organizing materials, reviewing meeting minutes, creating summaries, tracking action items, and finding information board members need.
AI hasn’t eliminated that work. I still need to review minutes, make sure information is accurate, and prepare materials, but AI can serve as a second set of eyes, helping capture information and complete some of the repetitive work—so I can concentrate on the areas that require my attention.
For nonprofits with limited staff and budgets, that may be the most practical place to start. You don’t necessarily need a sweeping AI strategy. Look for one repetitive, time-consuming process where technology could give someone a little time back.
2. Help board members get to the important questions faster
The same principle applies to the nonprofit’s board members. They have full-time jobs and busy lives, yet they may have to review a significant amount of information before a meeting. AI-generated summaries enable them to quickly comprehend what will be discussed before they walk into a meeting.
AI summaries don’t just save time. When board members can review high-level summaries that capture the crucial points of each agenda item instead of a 20+ slide deck, discussions can move more quickly to the questions that require their judgment and experience. They can come into meetings with the background they need to ask more focused follow-up questions, explore issues that may not have been addressed in the materials, and spend more time discussing implications and decisions.
This is where I see some of the greatest potential for AI: helping busy volunteers spend their limited meeting time asking questions, discussing implications, and making decisions.
3. Make institutional knowledge easier to access
Nonprofits accumulate an extraordinary amount of information over time—everything from meeting minutes, presentations, financial reports, agendas, decisions, and supporting documents. Saving that information and being able to use it is a challenge.
In a recent meeting, the question of when our board had first discussed a significant initiative came up. In the past, I might have had to stop what I was doing, search through previous records, and follow up with the answer after the meeting. Instead, I used AI to search across our historical board materials. In about a minute, I was able to find the earlier discussion, when it occurred, and the source material.
That experience changed the way I think about AI for governance. One of its most useful roles may be helping nonprofits make better use of the knowledge they already have. This can become especially critical as board members rotate on and off. Organizations shouldn’t have to depend entirely on someone’s memory of a discussion that happened four or five years ago when the record of that conversation already exists.
Keep people at the center
The advancement of technology doesn’t mean handing governance over to AI. Any use of AI should take place within an organization-approved platform, with appropriate access controls, confidentiality safeguards, and, most importantly, human review. I still review AI-generated minutes. Board members still need to read, question, discuss, and make decisions based on their experience and expertise. Technology doesn’t understand our organization, community, and mission the way the people involved in our work do. Instead, I think about AI as a tool for removing some of the work surrounding that human judgment.
For nonprofits considering using AI, the best starting question may be a very practical one: What administrative work is keeping our people from spending their limited time where it matters most?
If AI can help summarize information, locate materials about an earlier decision, or make meeting preparation a little easier, that’s time staff and volunteer board members can put back into the work only they can do.
Photo credit: Damien Center